Portable communication devices, within the scope of the disclosure, are construed as devices which are portable, and which are capable of supporting wireless communication. Typical examples of portable communication devices include, although are not limited to, mobile telephones, cellular phones, wireless-enabled tablet computers, iPhones™, iPods™ personal laptop computers, personal digital assistants (“PDA's”) and other such similar devices [Superscript™ stands for registered trademarks].
Currently, portable communication devices, including cellular phones, are equipped with advanced functionalities, for example, their enhanced processing capabilities, wider screen area, multiple interfacing sensors, and other similar advanced features incorporated into such devices. Often, such devices, including cellular phone, are provided with modules for determining an exact position and location of the devices. For example, many mobile devices have global positioning systems (GPS) to determine their exact location. GPS systems have a GPS receiver, which is synchronized with geostationary satellites, and the GPS receiver continuously receives signals from the satellites, to determine the exact location of the devices, and more specifically, their exact latitudinal and longitudinal positions. Certain cell based location determination systems are available in the art, which use the cellular ids of the portable devices, to identify their location. Further, there are systems which determine position of portable communication devices, using triangulation technique, trilateration and by using some signal strength methods too. Techniques are also available to determine positions of portable communication devices by analyzing signals received by the devices from certain near-field wireless sources.
A major problem associated with the aforementioned position/location determination systems, incorporated in portable communication devices, is that such systems generally consume a lot of power during determining location of the devices, and hence, they drain a lot of energy from the battery of the devices. Attempts have been made in the art to overcome this problem. For example, many smart phones, including the ‘Juice Defender’ for Android™ platforms, are equipped with functionality to selectively switch off or switch on, certain modules in the phones. For example, when the smartphone is not in a dedicated cellular cell of a wireless communication infrastructure, i.e., it is unable to find a typically used base station, the Wireless local area network (WLAN) of the phone can be set to switch-off in such circumstances. The reason is that the probability of finding a Wi Fi network is generally low, when the device is not in a typically used based station.
However, the problem of high consumption of the energy stored within portable communication devices, while determining their locations, still persists, and the current attempts to reduce power consumption within such devices have not been substantially effective. Therefore, there exists a need to have a better method for reducing the consumption of power within such devices.